Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the The Planted Tank Forum forums, you must first register.
Please enter your desired user name, your email address and other required details in the form below.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

Location

Your Location. As precise as you feel comfortable with.

Security Question

While balancing on a piece of wood, two inches by four inches known as a 2x4, John and his friend Sally both spotted a dalmatian inside of a truck with sirens. The animal with John and Sally is a _ _ _?

Insurance

Please select your insurance company (Optional)

Log-in

User Name

Remember Me?

Password

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.

Additional Options

Miscellaneous Options

Automatically parse links in text

Topic Review (Newest First)

06-01-2013 09:59 PM

flowerfishs

I have spirogyra and BBA in my tank too. Really want to kill them all. nasty look in my tank. trying to figure out the root issue, but also want to get rip of them as soo as possible, so I bought 3 platy from petsmart and put them in the tank to see if they really eat spirogyra. (A lot of people report that platy eat spirogyra ) It's already 2 days. I see one of them eating the spirogyra this morning. That's a good sign. I don't feed them anything. Hop they eAT ALL the spirogyra.

05-28-2013 05:31 PM

parrottbay

Still subscribed and did you ever combat the BBA? I now have that issue also... hahah

03-09-2013 03:27 AM

plantbrain

Quote:

Originally Posted by AUvet14

I understand that. Before I left, I increased CO2 as well as cleaned my diffuser, decreased photo-period, added a 1.5hr break in photo-period midday, thinned out what needed thinning, trimmed everything pretty heavily, I might also try raising my light a couple inches higher in the canopy to help reduce BBA growth as well. putting in my glass top has definitely had an effect on light intensity and BBA growth has slowed, but I still have 2 or 3 inches more that I can possibly raise the light to decrease or halt its growth. While I've been gone I've had someone coming to fertilize the tank each day and do water changes according to my normal maintenance schedule. I wish I had found your advice about AlgaeFix before I went through all that trouble with the H2O2. It worked remarkably well, apparent after the 2nd dose (6 days, dosed on day 1 and 4). I just did a 3rd dose to be safe. I was actually able to catch all of my shrimp and place them all in quarantine so I had no casualties.

I suffered for years with it, beating it back was never easy. Possible, but took a lot of work. I often removed the infested plants which worked well also.

03-09-2013 03:26 AM

plantbrain

Quote:

Originally Posted by meowschwitz

Will Algaefix kill off mosses/liverworts?

No, they are very tolerant of it.

03-09-2013 01:59 AM

seachaz

I'd been silently monitoring this thread as I too had an outbreak after uprooting some larger stem plants - I think the stirred up aquasoil was likely the cause. Anyway after trimming impacted plants plants, more frequent water changes, manually removing it and spot treatments with hydrogen peroxide (these all just kept it in check but didn't eliminate it) I finally succumbed to doing a blackout on the tank while I was out of town.

Before leaving did a very large water change, cleaned all the interior glass, filter intake and any large portions on the plants. Then blacked out the entire room for ~2.5 days except for 1/2 hour each day when I had some LEDs come to provide indirect light for the fish during their feeding. Tank appears clean of the stuff, now have to see if it stays that way when I go back to a normal light schedule. Fish and CRS survived, plants look pale but alive, dwarf hairgrass took the worst of it but should recover with time.

01-10-2013 03:29 PM

AUvet14

Update: While I was gone for Christmas break, my CO2 ran low, so I had an algae bloom. When I returned, the plants were completely overrun with hair algae, whether it be spirogyra or other types, as well as BBA. It appears that I didn't re-acclimate my shrimp adequately when I added them back to the tank right before I left and I guess they all died Since I got back last week, I've treated with AlgaeFix for 2 doses, one dose on the first day and one dose on the 4th day. It has nearly eliminated the hair algae. I will dose maybe once or twice more to try to get rid of it all, but the AlgaeFix worked wonders on the hair algae. Now I just have to figure out how to kill the BBA. Now that I have my CO2 back in order, I should be able to prevent further growth, but killing what is already there in my next task to conquer.

01-01-2013 09:04 PM

AUvet14

Quote:

Originally Posted by plantbrain

H2O2 never eradicated it, I tried a few times.
Algaefix does kill it all.

Root issue needs solved 1st, mostly CO2 issues.
Current etc.

I understand that. Before I left, I increased CO2 as well as cleaned my diffuser, decreased photo-period, added a 1.5hr break in photo-period midday, thinned out what needed thinning, trimmed everything pretty heavily, I might also try raising my light a couple inches higher in the canopy to help reduce BBA growth as well. putting in my glass top has definitely had an effect on light intensity and BBA growth has slowed, but I still have 2 or 3 inches more that I can possibly raise the light to decrease or halt its growth. While I've been gone I've had someone coming to fertilize the tank each day and do water changes according to my normal maintenance schedule. I wish I had found your advice about AlgaeFix before I went through all that trouble with the H2O2. It worked remarkably well, apparent after the 2nd dose (6 days, dosed on day 1 and 4). I just did a 3rd dose to be safe. I was actually able to catch all of my shrimp and place them all in quarantine so I had no casualties.

01-01-2013 08:06 PM

plantbrain

H2O2 never eradicated it, I tried a few times.
Algaefix does kill it all.

Root issue needs solved 1st, mostly CO2 issues.
Current etc.

01-01-2013 07:39 PM

AUvet14

Quote:

Originally Posted by parrottbay

Thanks for sharing, I am going to subscribe because I am facing the same problem... still not sure if it is fixed :S

Spiro is definitely a pain in the butt. I will try to update this thread when I get back to my aquarium on Friday. Hopefully there's no spirogyra left growing in it.

01-01-2013 06:22 AM

parrottbay

Thanks for sharing, I am going to subscribe because I am facing the same problem... still not sure if it is fixed :S

I haven't updated this thread in a while. The H2O2 treatment appeared to work for about a week and a half but I started seeing little green threads appearing again. This time I set up a quarantine tank and caught all my shrimp and quarantined them in the quarantine tank for the duration of the AlgaeFix treatment which did work. I used 3 treatments as per the directions on the bottle, 3 days apart, just to make sure I got rid of it before I left for Christmas break. This looks to have worked so far but I will know for sure when I get back to my apartment on Friday. I've had someone caring for the aquarium while I've been gone.

Lesson learned: try Algaefix first. Much less labor intensive and I saw improvement withing the first 3 days and throughout the whole treatement there was do noticeable damage to any of the plants or the moss.

12-31-2012 10:26 PM

TexasCichlid

If you hit it with the proper dose of AlgaeFix, you won't have to trim or disposes of plants in my experience with it. Hate spiro.

12-31-2012 10:24 PM

jonathan

I had this problem in a ten gallon aquarium with java moss, and I used Algaefix. Algae turned pink, then eventually white. It was dead and never actually went away. None of my fish would eat it. I ended up throwing everything it touched away.

This thread has more than 15 replies.
Click here to review the whole thread.